Schneiderman marks annual National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day by encouraging use of year-round Rx drop boxes

by jmaloni

Press release

Mon, Apr 29th 2013 09:10 am

Schneiderman:
Rx drug abuse is fueled by easy access to unused drugs; New Yorkers
should dispose of unused drugs

On
Saturday, New York Attorney General Eric T. Schneiderman marked the
sixth annual National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day by visiting
take-back sites at the Crossgates Mall in Albany, and the Yonkers
Police Department - 2nd Precinct in Yonkers, and urging
New Yorkers to disposed of unused drugs at these sites, and at drop
boxes that are now available across the state year-round.
Schneiderman was joined in Albany by Mayor Gerald R. Jennings, and in
Yonkers by Mayor Mike Spano.

Prescription
drug abuse is the fastest growing drug problem in America. Seventy
percent of youth get their prescription drugs from family and
friends. More than 2 million pounds of
prescription medications were removed from circulation at take-back
days over the past five years.

To
combat the prescription drug epidemic, Schneiderman led the effort to
enact the Internet
System for Tracking Over-Prescribing Act, or I-STOP, a
comprehensive law to fight prescription drug abuse. I-STOP expanded
on the model of the take-back day to make medication drop boxes
available year round in New York, starting last August, for the safe
and legal disposal of unused prescription drugs.

"One
of the keys to stemming the growing epidemic of prescription drug
abuse is cutting off easy access to unused drugs in home medicine
cabinets," Schneiderman said.
"That's why New York's groundbreaking I-STOP law expanded on
National Prescription Drug Take-Back Day to make medication drop
boxes available year-round all across the state. I encourage all New
Yorkers to dispose of unneeded drugs at a local site today, and to
visit the Department of Health website to locate a year-round drop
box."

Take-back
days are organized by the federal Drug Enforcement Administration in
conjunction with state and local officials to provide a safe,
convenient, and legal way to dispose of unused prescription drugs so
that they are not susceptible to diversion or abuse. Year-round drop
boxes can be located on the state Department
of Health website.

The
I-STOP law was first introduced by Schneiderman in 2011 and passed
unanimously by the Legislature in 2012. Among the features of this
legislation:

I-STOP
makes New York the first state in the nation to mandate that
physicians consult a database of a patient's prescription history
before prescribing a schedule II, III or IV controlled substance.
Substances are placed in their respective schedules based on whether
they have a currently accepted medical in the U.S., their relative
abuse potential, and likelihood of causing dependence when abused.
For example, oxycodone, a frequently abused prescription painkiller,
is schedule II. Accurate patient histories and better training will
help physicians detect doctor shoppers and better serve patients at
risk of addiction. Doctors can also use this information to avoid
potentially dangerous drug interactions.

I-STOP
makes New York the largest (and only second) state in the nation to
require real-time reporting by pharmacists when schedule II, III, IV
or V prescriptions are filled.

I-STOP
makes New York one of the first states to schedule the universal
mandate of e-prescribing for controlled substances in December of
2014. This should nearly eliminate the problem of forged or stolen
prescriptions—used both by addicts, and criminal organizations
obtaining pills to resell on the street.

I-STOP
also deters fraud against private health insurers and the state
government. Taxpayers have been paying for a substantial portion of
the over-prescribed pills through the Medicaid program. Each ring of
collusive patients and prescribers prosecuted by the attorney
general's medicaid fraud control unit represented a loss to the
state of at least $1 million.

In
the run-up to I-STOPs passage, the attorney general released a report
detailing the scope of the prescription drug epidemic in New York and
demonstrating the need for action by the Legislature. According to
the AG's report:

Statewide
prescriptions for hydrocodone have increased 16.7 percent, while
those for oxycodone have increased an astonishing 82 percent between
2007 and 2009;

In
Buffalo, New York's largest methadone clinic outside of New York
City, Catholic Health System, has begun to reorganize its service to
accommodate an increase in care needed to treat the number of
opiate-addicted expectant mothers and newborns;

In
Western New York, nine "prescriptions drop-offs," whereby
households can dispose of unwanted and unnecessary drugs, were held
over two years between October 2008 and November 2010. In total,
these drop-offs yielded 652 poundsof controlled substances, comprised of 124,050 doses of
narcotics, including 48,883 doses of hydrocodone, 16,393 doses of
oxycodone, and 2,287 doses of fentanyl.

I-STOP
vastly enhances the effectiveness of New York's prescription
tracking system. Its goal is to enable doctors and pharmacists to
provide prescription pain medications, and other controlled
substances, to patients who truly need them. At the same time, it
arms them with the necessary data to detect potentially dangerous
drug interactions, identify patterns of abuse by patients, doctors
and pharmacists, help those who suffer from crippling addictions, and
prevent potential addiction before it starts.

Schneiderman
thanked the U.S. Department of Justice DEA and the New York State
Department of Health for organizing National Prescription Drug
Take-Back Day events across New York state.